


I Am Saved

by Lolapola



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-02
Updated: 2019-05-02
Packaged: 2020-02-15 20:03:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18676495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lolapola/pseuds/Lolapola
Summary: *ENDGAME SPOILERS*Summary inside





	I Am Saved

**Author's Note:**

> Tony's journey is coming to an end. He doesn't have to do it alone. 
> 
>  
> 
> I was, and still am, absolutely devastated after Endgame. I loved it, and I couldn't have asked for a more fitting and respectful goodbye to one of my favourite characters, but I am still heartbroken. And so we have this extremely self-indulgent fic that is nothing more than me trying to reassure myself that Tony is happy and at peace. IT'S WHAT HE DESERVES.
> 
> I hope this fic makes other people feel better as well. 
> 
> *I've only seen Endgame once so any inaccuracies are due to my faulty memory, apologies*

Tony opens his eyes.

He feels…different. Not bad. But not something he’s familiar with. If he was really being forced to describe the sensation, he would say he felt…peaceful. The realisation makes him snort a little, because of all the things he imagined death would be, cliched wasn’t one of them.

Because that’s what he is, isn’t it? Dead. They didn’t call him a genius for nothing. He had known what he was doing when he’d snapped his fingers on that battlefield. There’s nothing else he could be. And this? This isn’t life he’s feeling. This is…something else.

He looks around, taking in his surroundings with mild curiosity. He’d thought about death a lot in his life – like, a _lot_ – and always with a degree of resignation that for all his genius, that was a mystery he would never be able to solve. Well, not until this moment, anyway. And here he is. Finding out the answers. The scientist in him is losing his goddamn mind.

“Tony?”

He turns.

Natasha stares at him, frozen to the spot. Then her eyes fill with tears, emotions flooding over her face in a way Tony didn’t think he’d ever seen before. Was it death that did that to her, he wonders, or was it those five years in an unrecognisable world?

She takes a half-step towards him.

“Tony, God, no…” she whispers. Tony moves towards her, suddenly realising what she’s thinking, where her mind had gone when she’d seen him.

“Hey,” he says, and takes her hand, the one she’s reaching shakily towards him, “It’s okay. It’s okay. We won.” And he smiles, really smiles. “It’s over.”

It takes a moment. Then she laughs, tears spilling over her cheeks. “We won?”

He grins at her.

“Yeah. We did it, Nat.”

She lunges forward and hugs him fiercely, and he spins her round, laughing with her. For a moment, for the first time in a long time, they’re weightless. He sets her down and they stand there for a moment, beaming at each other. Then Natasha’s smile flickers.

“But… but you…”

Tony smiles at her, a little sad. Here, it’s numbed, the grief of what he left behind, but he still feels it.

“It’s okay, Nat,” he repeats, “We knew this might happen. And it wasn’t in vain. Not for either of us.”

Natasha nods, returning his smile a little shakily. “Don’t take this the wrong way,” she says with a watery laugh, “but I really, really didn’t want to see you here yet.”

Tony pulls her in close, and they cling to each other.

“I wouldn’t change what I did,” he says, and means it.

“I know. Just…”

“Yeah. I know.” _It’s not fair._

They’re silent for a moment, then Tony pulls away, whacking her lightly on the arm.

“Besides, Clint wanted me to come check on you, make sure you weren’t raising, uh…hell? Heaven? Whatever limbo space we’re in?”

Natasha looks at him sharply.

“Clint?” she says desperately, “He’s…?”

Tony smiles gently, thanking every deity he knows that he can say what she needs to hear.

“He’s fine,” he says, and Natasha’s face crumples all over again, but she’s beaming. “He survived. Everyone did, actually, I’m pretty sure. Well, except us, but I still call that a hell of a success rate.”

Natasha swipes at her face, trying to compose herself. “Not our worst result,” she agrees.

“And Clint kicked ass in the battle, obviously, I saw him out there doing his whole bringing-a-bow-and-arrow-to-a-nuclear-weapons-fight thing, and excellently as always. I’m also pretty sure I saw Cap holding Thor’s hammer at one point, so _that’s_ a thing now I guess -”

They sit together for what feels like a long time, Tony catching Natasha up on everything that happened – how they brought everyone back, how Bruce stepped up and saved billions of lives, the way the birds started singing and they knew it had worked. How it felt to see Peter again. The way Wanda had sneered at Thanos and struck his army down like it was nothing.

When Tony reaches the end of his story he trails off a little, unable to put into words how it felt to look up and meet Strange’s eyes across the battlefield and _know_. Natasha puts her hand on his. She understands. There’s silence for a while. Then –

“Stark.”

They both turn, and Tony’s breath catches in his throat.

Yinsen gives him a small, wry smile, mild as he ever was in life, eyes shining beneath his glasses.

“When I said not to waste your life, Stark, I did not think that you would take it this far.”

Tony stares. Then he stands, walking towards Yinsen, Natasha at his back.

“Nat,” he says, still unable to tear his eyes away from him, “This is Yinsen.” He hears her sharp intake of breath, and he knows she knows who he is, but he has to say it. He has to know that Yinsen knows. “He saved my life in literally every way you can think of, and probably more.”

Yinsen ducks his head, chuckling. “And by extension, the whole universe, no?”

Tony huffs a breathless laugh, suddenly aware that he’s smiling so wide that his entire face hurts.

“Technically, it was only 50%, but I’ll give it to you.”

Yinsen clasps his shoulder and leans around him to shake Natasha’s hand.

“It is truly an honour to meet you, Miss Romanov.”

“Likewise,” she says, smiling back at him.

“Yinsen,” Tony says suddenly, “Did – did you find your family?” It suddenly feels like the most important question he’s ever asked.

“Of course,” he answers, and Tony’s heart is the lightest it’s been in a long time. “I would love for you to meet them, if you would like.”

“Yes! Yeah, absolutely, I – wait. Here?”

Yinsen shakes his head, still smiling in that enigmatic way that used to comfort Tony and drive him crazy at the same time. “Not here, no. I’m here to take you somewhere else. Both of you.”

“So what’s this place, the afterlife’s great waiting room?”

“Something like that.”

Tony opens his mouth to argue, to ask questions, because miracle of an afterlife or not, he’s never come across something he didn’t understand – but Natasha thwacks him in the ribs, and smiles warmly at Yinsen.

“We’d love to come with you. Thank you.”

Yinsen nods. Then he turns to Tony again.

“One more thing. Stark, do you remember something I said to you, back in that cave?”

“Anything in particular? You were full of soundbites.”

Yinsen takes hold of his shoulders and looks at him with that piercing gaze, the one that used to make Tony feel like his soul was being pulled out and held up for judgement. Looking back, he’d attributed that to the torture and the fact that his heart had been hooked up to a car battery, but maybe it had just been Yinsen. Regardless, now Tony is powerless to look away.

“You are no longer a man who has everything and nothing,” Yinsen says, and Tony believes him. “For a little while, it seemed to me, you were simply a man who had…everything.”

Tony lets the words wash over him, and can only nod.

Yinsen smiles a little, patting his shoulder gently. “I think, perhaps, between the two of you, no one has ever made a second chance count quite so much.”

Tony glances at Natasha, and she looks as suckerpunched as he feels.

“Now,” Yinsen continues placidly, as if they’d just finished discussing the weather, “Are you ready?”

Tony swallows, and takes Natasha’s hand.

“Yeah. We’re ready.”

He feels Natasha squeeze his hand a little, and for the first time in his life, he feels no fear.

Tony closes his eyes.  

 

**Author's Note:**

> Headcanon for my own story: Jarvis is waiting for him wherever they go. I couldn't think of a way of saying that without this fic getting even more self indulgent so just know that he is. 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed!


End file.
